Tart by BECKI JAYNE CROSSLEY is a heartwarming friends-to-lovers queer romance about coming out and finding yourself along the way. Read on for an extract.
THE NIGHT IT HAPPENED
I don’t remember the last time I needed to talk to someone this badly – I feel as though I could burst before I have the chance to get it out.
I pump the pedals of my bike faster and lean forward as if that might get me there a microsecond earlier. I know from living here my entire life that it takes 10 minutes to get from mine to Libby’s, but the ride across Chipping Hollow has never felt so long. It’s dark out, and not just because the nights are starting to draw in now that we’re into October. It was already late when Aaron dropped me back at mine after our gig in the city, but this couldn’t wait until morning. I grabbed my bike and headed off before I even went inside, so I hope I make it back home before my parents start to worry about where I am. I probably should have just sent Libby a text, but this is a conversation I want to have face-to-face.
The vague smell of stale beer from the basement venue still clings to my hoodie. It was a great set, possibly one of our best. Lewis was buzzing when we came off stage, convinced it’s only a matter of time until we’re ‘discovered’. I can’t help but roll my eyes at the memory – it’s true we don’t sound half bad, and it’s a lot of fun. But we’ve no lofty expectations about the prospects of what is essentially a bunch of 17-year-olds smashing away on their instruments to crowds that just happen to be there.
But that’s not what I’m dwelling on right now. It’s what came after we got off stage that has me hurtling through the night air to talk to Libby. My mind is spinning, and it occurs to me mid-pedal that I never got around to fixing my bike lights – I never needed them during the long, lazy days of summer.
The thought enters and exits my head in a heartbeat. I’ll fix them tomorrow, I idly promise myself.
I reach the crest of a shallow hill and freewheel a little on the other side, weaving the handlebars back and forth as I turn things over in my mind. If anyone was to catch sight of me right now, I’d look like a madman. But there is no one about on this long, winding country road in the dark of encroaching autumn.
No one, until very suddenly there is.
The headlights burst from the night with a ferocity that, at first, is the only thing that scares me. On instinct I squeeze my eyes shut just as it occurs to me that, oh yes, there’s a 3000-pound hunk of metal on wheels behind those lights. And then the air is screeching and everything hurts all at once and someone is screaming and it might be me …
And then, nothing.
OCTOBER
LIBBY
I quickly learned that it doesn’t matter if I can’t remember a thing about the crime I committed, people will still blame me for it. In a tiny village like ours, your business is automatically every-one else’s business. When I woke up that morning two weeks ago, head pounding and feeling like my brain had been turned inside out, I had absolutely no idea that half the population of Chipping Hollow already hated me.
‘Almighty God our heavenly father, graciously comfort your child in his suffering.’
I was never really what you’d call ‘popular’; I don’t think I was ever attractive or funny or talented enough to stand out. I’ve always held a sort of happy middle-ground – my classmates are perfectly friendly to me when they bump into me at some party, but other-wise, they don’t give me a second thought.
That’s not necessarily a complaint. It’s not the worst place to be in the social hierarchy. Especially as no one misses you if you decide to skip something to stay home and eat ice cream in your pajamas.
‘Bless the means made of us for his cure.’
I shift uncomfortably on the wooden assembly bench as I try to tune out the Reverend’s prayers. Not because I don’t care, but because it’s getting more and more painful to hear.
Dan was what you might call my first ‘proper’ boyfriend, if you don’t count the two-week primary school romance with Jason Pratt, which I generally don’t. He only got me to agree to go out with him by following me around all lunchtime break, singing ‘We Go Together’ from Grease.
Dan was a little different. Then again, Dan was always going to be different.
In the first week of nursery school, a four-year-old Daniel King saved me from an attack by the biggest spider my young eyes had ever seen. It had crawled onto my Polly Pocket backpack and was staging a siege between me and my cheese sandwiches.
Dan was stood next to me at the row of coat pegs and saw me recoil in horror. He scooped the spider up between his pudgy hands and threw it from the nearest open window without so much as a flinch. It was nothing short of heroic.
I decided there and then that I wanted Daniel King to be my boyfriend.
He spent primary school singing in the church choir, and was the kind of kid that always got picked to do the best reading at harvest festival, or play his guitar at the Easter service. After we hit high school and most guys were still making crude jokes and terrible haircut decisions, Dan got hot. The dark curls and bright blue eyes he’d always had were suddenly paired with broad shoulders and an extra foot of height. When your community is this small, it’s hard not to notice that kind of thing.
‘Fill his heart with confidence that he may put his trust in you.’
The desire for Dan to be my boyfriend never really went away, though it did evolve as we grew up. What started off as wanting us to hold hands and share our snacks at playtime, developed into a full-blown crush, the kind that leaves you listening to a lot of early Taylor Swift.
When we finally became a couple at the start of the summer, I hadn’t considered that my status would go up purely by association. I was the Libby half of Dan-and-Libby, and people I’d known all my life but barely spoken to, now wanted to be my friend. It was as though I’d all of a sudden bloomed into existence. There was some thinly veiled jealously from a few of the other girls in our year, but nothing that ever came to anything. Until now.
I’d quite enjoyed my brief stint as a member of the ‘in’ crowd, as much as I always pretended I didn’t care about such trivial things as popularity. And things didn’t change too much – I still had Mona, my best friend since the first day of Year One when we turned up with the same Scooby Doo lunch box. Bonds like that last forever, or at least, they’re supposed to. Nearly a whole summer apart while she was away with her family was bad enough, but after what happened …
‘Through Jesus Christ our Lord, Amen.’
Reverend Wallace finally finishes his prayer, and an unusually audible ripple of ‘amens’ runs through the assembly hall, pulling me back to the present. Very few of us normally pay attention to morning prayers, more occupied with trying stealthily to check our Instagram notifications, slipping phones back up our blazer sleeves when a teacher turns towards us. But today, not a single person’s face is under-lit by the tell-tale glow of a phone screen.
Today, the prayer is for Dan.
I can feel someone’s eyes on me, something I seem to have developed a talent for picking up on recently. I glance down the row and spot Katie West staring daggers at me, a look of pure dis-gust on her face. The girls around her – every single one of them with me on the night that it happened – start to notice and join in, until the force of their collective gaze makes my skin prickle and burn.
I force myself to sit there, as still as if I was carved out of stone, until we’re finally dismissed. I leap from my seat, shouldering my way through the crowd to get out into the corridor, heart hammering as I remind myself to breathe.
‘Slut!’
I cringe as I scoop egg goop and broken shell from the bottom of my locker, pushing it with a wet slop into a plastic bag. My whole body is poised to gag but I hold it back, determined to keep my expression blank. It’s enough that I’m forced to do this in front of a corridor of snickering onlookers; they’re not having the satisfaction of knowing it’s making me want to bring up my breakfast.
I wonder idly who did it. You’ve got to admire their dedication to tormenting me, really. Holding onto their on-the-turn eggs especially for me. I mean, that’s effort right there.
Having a locker is supposedly a special privilege, something you’re only bestowed when you reach the upper echelons of St Hilda’s C of E School and Sixth Form. In our younger years we coveted the older kids – something as exotically American as lockers was seen as a badge of honour for the day you hit sixth form. Even the ancient, rusting things that line the walls of St Hilda’s. It’s an honour I’m not particularly grateful for right now.
A knot sticks in the back of my throat as I lift out a ruined notebook and hold it gingerly between my finger and thumb. Beneath a layer of gunk is a Polaroid I’d glued to the front cover; Mona with her burst of dark curls is grinning up at me. I’m tucked under her arm, my face so luminously red with laughter that you can’t see my freckles. It’s my favourite photo of us.
I drop the whole thing into the bag with the eggs.
From the corner of my eye I can see Lewis leaning against a noticeboard further down the corridor, scrolling on his phone in blatant disregard for St Hilda’s ‘phones off during school hours’ rule. He doesn’t look my way, but I duck my head back into the locker just in case. As one of Dan’s best friends and his band mate, he’s not my biggest fan right now.
Maybe he’s the one that defiled my locker. I picture him coming into school early, jimmying open the metal door and pouring the stinking eggs all over my textbooks. It feels like the kind of thing he might do.
The slimy mixture seeps onto my hands and it feels pointless to try and figure out who did it. I suppose it doesn’t matter.
At least all Aaron, Dan’s other best friend, has done is give me is the silent treatment. Although every time he sees me in the corridor, the pain and betrayal in his eyes hurts more than anything Lewis may or may not have done to my locker. Aaron was always so friendly at their band rehearsals, the only one of their group to make me feel actually welcome.
Katie West was an entirely different matter, though she’d never do something as obvious as egging my locker. Her cruelty was always more subtle, clouded in a sweetness that couldn’t quite overpower its bitter aftertaste. Even before the incident I knew she didn’t like me. She’s Lewis’s girlfriend but grew up with Dan, the pair of them practically inseparable since birth. And she made it clear, if only to me, that I wasn’t a welcome addition to their close-knit circle.
I wipe the last of the gunk from my locker and drop another ruined book into the bag. I close the door slowly, careful not to slam it, and walk with my chin up along the row. The soggy bag goes straight into the first bin I pass, tossed as casually as an empty food wrapper.
I pass Lewis, whose eyes finally drift up from his phone and land on me.
It’s only a whisper, but I still hear the word that escapes his lips as I pass.
‘Whore.’
I walk through the corridors during a free period, feeling rather than seeing the burning stares that come my way. Lewis isn’t the only student to throw some kind of derogatory term in my direction. Even the year nines are at it, my indiscretion evidently school-wide knowledge.
I duck into the library, hoping for a moment of peace, and disappear quickly behind the shelves, losing myself in P through to R.
If we lived anywhere else, I would have been attending a school full of people who hadn’t known me since the age of three. I could have got away with being at least a little inconspicuous, despite my might-as-well-be-neon red hair announcing my identity. But no, we live in Chipping Hollow. And everyone in Chipping Hollow has known you since you were ‘this high’.
Dan and I only started going out in July. At the end of the school year, Craig Shaw threw a party to mark the beginning of the end of our sixth-form careers, and I’d promised myself I was finally going to tell Dan how I felt about him. How I had felt about him for years, having never quite let go of the spider incident. I was going to tell him and then deal with whatever came next, good or bad.
Being Dan’s girlfriend was almost like being royalty – not quite the King and Queen, but maybe a well-known Duke and Duchess. We sat just outside the centre of attention – close enough to feel its warmth but without too much pressure or expectation. All you had to do was avoid some major slip up and you’d be golden.
I guess I failed there.
I browse my way through the bell signalling the start of second period, and the library empties out a little. I tell myself to go to Psychology, but Lewis is in Psychology and I can’t quite bring myself to suffer any more abuse this morning. The eggs were plenty to deal with before lunch.
I pluck a book at random from the shelves. Mrs Emerson, the school librarian, who by all laws of nature should be dead by now, gives me a measured look with her cloudy eyes before going back to her laminating machine. She knows I’m skipping lessons. I don’t care. She doesn’t care. We’ve been getting on just fine.
In fact, I think she’s been leaving books out for me. Those cloudy eyes see all and she’s definitely noticed that my peers have been giving me hell, so I think she’s been trying to cheer me up a bit. The silver lining of living in a village with a rapidly ageing population is that most of them don’t pay the slightest bit of attention to social media, so she doesn’t know why I’m currently a pariah. Which works in my favour.
Sure enough, when I drop down into my favourite comfy chair by the windows, there’s a photography book placed casually on the side table. I glance over to her, but she’s pretending not to notice.
I open the book but I don’t read it. My mind floats away from the library, across the village to the hospital where Dan is. Lying motionless, connected to half a dozen machines that I couldn’t name even if I tried. Suspended somewhere between life and not life.
I can’t believe it’s already been two weeks since Mr King called me to tell me about the accident. At first, I’d thought it was one of Dan’s friends playing some sort of sick joke. I was barely awake, still nursing my hangover from the night before and hadn’t yet realised what I’d done.
It took his dad a good few minutes to convince me that what he was saying was real. Once it finally sank in I dropped the phone and screamed at Mum to get the car keys. I didn’t even listen long enough to hear all the details, just that Dan was in the hospital and it wasn’t looking good.
I learned the specifics later as I sat hugging my knees to my chest on a lumpy armchair in the hospital waiting room. My eyes and nose were sore from the scratchy pieces of toilet paper I’d been rubbing them with, although by that point I’d cried all the moisture out of my body. I did that the moment I saw Dan, looking so tiny on a hospital bed with his face obscured by an oxygen mask.
They told Dan’s parents the full extent of his injuries in a family room off the side of the ward – I could hear Mrs King’s sobs all the way down the corridor. But just looking at him was enough to know it was bad. Any scrap of skin that wasn’t wrapped in a plaster cast was covered in violent, angry bruises, and his neck was supported by a brace. I didn’t dare ask if it was just a precaution or something more.
Eventually Dan’s dad came out, looking half in a trance, and explained what had happened. Mum had to hold my hands down to try and stop them shaking as I stared without seeing at the faded posters on the walls, Mr King’s words washing over me. There were a lot of complicated words that my mind was too addled to translate into English, but I pieced together that Dan had been knocked from his bike by a driver that they were still looking for. I told him – I told him – to fix the lights on his damn bike, or at least take the long route by the church. Not the dark, winding country road he’d been on when a car came hurtling through the night.
The road that he always took from his house to mine. I’ve been trying not to think about that too much.
Thank god for Mr Pine and his insomnia – he’d found Dan lying in the road while walking his dog, out far later than the rest of the village ever is. And of course, as everyone knows everyone in Chipping Hollow, he’d been able to call Dan’s parents immediately after summoning an ambulance. I don’t want to think about what state he might have been in if he hadn’t been found until the morning.
The doctor told us that they’d be taking him in for surgery soon, assuring us that they would do everything they could. The way he said it suggested that it might not be enough.
Dan’s parents were allowed to sleep fitfully on the sofa in the family room, but as a non-family member I was asked to leave. Mr King hugged me before I left, squeezing me so hard I thought my shoulders might pop. Mrs King had passed out by this time. I’ve not been able to face them since, too wracked with guilt about not only betraying Dan, but possibly being the reason he was on the road that late in the first place.
I shake myself out of the memory, closing my eyes and resting my head on the book I’m not reading. The sound of the library, pages turning and the occasional whisper of students working through a free period, lulls me into a half-sleep.
The relative peace is broken when I hear my name.
‘Are you Olivia Dixon?’
I raise my head and squint at a younger girl with a ‘Student Assistant’ badge pinned to the front of her school jumper.
‘I guess I have to be. What?’
The girl draws herself up with importance. ‘I’ve got a note here to say you’ve got to go to your Head of Year’s office, straight away.’
I groan, and tell myself that I knew I probably wasn’t going to get away with skipping lessons forever. If she’s found me this easily, then my library sanctuary isn’t the well-kept secret I thought it was.
‘You’ve got to go right now – ’
‘Yes, yes I’m going,’ I snap, snatching up my bag and stalking away. As I leave the library, someone coughs ‘slut’.
It’s getting old, fast.
***
I squirm in my seat outside Mr Harper’s office, watching the clock tick and realising that I’m going to miss English next period. Seems ironic that they’d keep me out of lessons to give me a telling off about skipping lessons, but in the grand scheme of things they’ve probably done me a favour. Just by being here I’ve avoided about three spit balls, several slurs and a can of Diet Coke poured in my bag.
The door to Mr Harper’s office jerks open and he steps out, eyes boring into me. He nods curtly and goes back inside.
I suppose that’s my cue.
The office smells of photocopier toner and an unpleasantly strong aftershave. It’s empty of personal touches, save for a silver-framed photograph of a smiling blonde lady on a shelf behind the desk. I try to imagine Mr Harper with a wife, a family. The imposing figure in the grey suit across the room doesn’t really lend itself to that image.
Dominating the room, on the wall above the desk, is a large wooden cross, on which a disturbingly detailed figure of Christ is splayed. We’ve got crosses in most of our classrooms, but Mr Harper has the only crucifix. Personally, I think he put it there specifically so Jesus can stare down at those of us summoned to receive punishments.
I sit down in the uncomfortable chair opposite Mr Harper’s desk before he invites me to, which earns me another hard stare. ‘Miss Dixon,’ he starts, lowering himself into his smart leather chair. He stares at me through thick-lensed glasses and I wonder if he’s waiting for me to respond.
‘Mr Harper.’
His eyes narrow. It’s not what he was looking for.
‘Do you know why I’ve asked you to come and see me today?’
I make an uncommitted noise and shrug. Judgmental Jesus looks on silently.
‘I want you to explain to me why you’ve been missing your lessons.’ He pulls a piece of paper from a cardboard folder that’s been carefully placed on the desk, directly in front of where I’m sitting. ‘Your teachers have reported five separate instances of unexplained absences in the past week.’
I wonder if every other truancy gets treated this way, as though I’ve been caught spray-painting the corridors instead of hiding out in the library. I focus on the lady in the photograph just above his head, a scrap of humanity in the otherwise void room.
‘I’ve been having a rough time.’ I try to keep my voice bland and uninterested, but I can tell it’s not fooling him so I just go for it. ‘My boyfriend is in a coma.’
There’s a very awkward pause, and when I look up I’m surprised to see that he has the good grace to look uncomfortable for a second.
‘Yes, well,’ he says gruffly, seemingly not prepared for me to bring it up directly. ‘Our thoughts and prayers are all with Daniel, of course.’
I only get to enjoy his squirming for a moment, before his gaze turns cold and steady again.
‘However, I also understand there’s been some talk, amongst your year. Regarding a video of yourself that’s been circulating.’
I say nothing, momentarily stunned into silence that the teachers are privy to idle teenage gossip. He knows about the video. Has he seen it? My stomach lurches worse than it did when clearing the eggs out of my locker – an incident I imagine he won’t be concerning himself with, along with the other various hells my classmates have been putting me through.
Mr Harper drums his fingers on the desk. ‘I hope you under-stand, Olivia, that St Hilda’s has a reputation for excellency and self-respect.’ He stands so I have to tilt my head back to stare up at him. ‘As sixth-form students, your year is held as an example to the younger pupils. We don’t want the wrong example being set. Especially when it comes to underage drinking.’
Okay, he’s just talking about the drinking. My pulse slows a little, but my hands clench and unclench in my lap. I shouldn’t be surprised after all my time at St Hilda’s that this man is more bothered about the school’s reputation than bullying happening right under his nose.
He continues, my incredulity ignored. ‘If you do not keep your head down, and that includes attending all your scheduled lessons, we will have to take further action on the matter. We don’t take things like this lightly at this school.’ He pauses, his eyes roaming over me in a way that makes me suppress a shudder. ‘You may leave.’
He sits back down and turns to his computer. I’ve been dismissed.
I rise to my feet and start to walk towards the door.
‘And tuck your shirt in, for goodness sake.’
I stop to look back at him in shock.
Mr Harper doesn’t look up. Neither does Jesus. I leave.
I can’t believe this is happening.
NEHA
My new room, although I suppose I should really start calling it just ‘my room’ after nearly a year, is significantly smaller than my old one. I have to bend awkwardly to see my whole body in the oddly angled mirror that’s wedged between the chest of drawers and the window.
If I stay here much longer I’ll be late for school, but Jas is on an early shift at the hospital so there’s no one to chivvy me along. I tug at the end of my ponytail, wondering if I should try some-thing different today, as if that would even make a difference.
It might help if I was able to wear my regular clothes and convey at least an ounce of personality. Unlike my old school, St Hilda’s insists the sixth-formers still wear the uniform. Something about ‘modesty’ and ‘preparing you for dress codes in the work place’. I just think the teachers want to maintain the privilege of snapping at us for not having our top buttons done up.
I look back at my wardrobe wistfully, wishing I could wear one of my colourful sweatshirts or patterned dungarees instead of this ugly maroon jumper, itchy blazer and gender-mandated skirt. My uniform had to come second-hand from the shop in town as I joined a couple of months into the last school year and they had no new stock in. The jumper is too baggy in the sleeves and the blazer is shiny on the elbows, but I didn’t want to ask Jas to fork out for new stuff at the beginning of this year.
Apart from the unsightly uniform, there’s nothing particularly wrong with St Hilda’s. Not really. But after 11 months it still doesn’t feel like mine. Nothing in Chipping Hollow does, and even though I’d visited Jas here plenty of times before moving, it’s still not home.
Even my bedroom doesn’t feel like it belongs to me, despite mine and Jas’s best efforts. We put up all my crinkly theatre posters over the dodgy wallpaper, covering up the gaudy pattern with flash promos for Heathers, Phantom of the Opera and SIX the Musical. We strung fairy lights around the metal bed frame, stuffed the limited shelves with my books, and even stuck the glow-in-the-dark stars from my childhood bedroom to the ceiling. The glue is old and they fall down sometimes in the middle of the night, but they’re too comforting for me to get rid of.
I heave a sigh (the kind that Jas calls ‘theatrical’) even though there’s no one here to witness it, and flip my ponytail back over my shoulder. I suppose it’ll have to do. I doubt a radical new hair-style would transform my new life anyway.
I’m on the way out of my bedroom when I pause and turn back towards my dresser. From a box of pins on top I pluck out a small rainbow pride flag and fasten it to the strap of my rucksack. A tiny act of colourful rebellion.
***
I wander towards school, taking the long way through the village green despite already cutting it a bit fine time-wise – there’s honestly nothing worse than standing around outside of school waiting for the first bell with no one to talk to, and nothing to occupy you.
The village looks as it always does – like something from a postcard, or perhaps an episode of one of those cosy old mystery TV shows that my nan used to love. Everything feels like it’s been here forever, the people just as permanent a feature as the jumbled rows of stone-build cottages that line the green.
Moving to Chipping Hollow was like stepping back in time. The kids my age might have the latest phones and use modern slang, but it feels so out of place here – like spotting a smart watch on the wrist of an actor in a period drama. This village is a time capsule of how things used to be, and I still haven’t figured out how far that affects people’s attitudes towards such radical modern concepts as ‘being openly gay’.
It’s hard enough being the new kid halfway through the school year, but throw in being the new, queer, brown kid halfway through the extremely white Christian school year in a weird little village where everyone has known each other since birth, and it’s way worse. Not to mention having left behind a group of beautifully supportive friends you miss like crazy, or the reason for the move in the first place … but I know if I dwell on it too long I’ll ruin the entire day for myself. I’ve already lost too many to self-pity spirals.
I concentrate instead on the morning activity of the village green, predicting what I’m going to see before it happens. It’s not a hard game to win. Mr Taylor leans in the doorway of his tea shop holding a huge steaming mug as he chats with Mrs Bramley, out for her usual morning walk. I glance at the time on my phone and can’t help but smirk: 8.42 a.m. She’s right on time.
I look across the green to see – yep, there’s Mr Norman, the postman, in his khaki shorts despite the chilly October breeze, wheeling his bike along the pavement. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him ride that thing. It fits with the cosy village aesthetic so well it seems that no one has ever thought to question it.
I suppose this level of consistency is comforting to some people, but as someone from a town bigger than Chipping Hollow, it’s a bit eerie. Making it into a game helps a little towards alleviating the Stepford vibes.
I cross the road as Mr Norman approaches, wanting to stay out of his way. Even after nearly a year, I haven’t quite nailed the same code-switch that the other kids my age have perfected when it comes to interacting with the older people in the village. All I ever manage is an awkward smile as they frown and try to figure out who the hell I am.
I make it to school on time, passing under the stone archway above the entrance doors just as the bell rings. My last school was a flat, boxy concrete construction from the 80s. St Hilda’s is a different beast, solid brick and stone that’s been worn smooth by the years. It even has the old ‘Girls’ and ‘Boys’ entrances from decades ago, the words etched deep into the stone above the doors as unmoving as the school’s rigid ideas on gender identity. I suspect more than one of the teachers still wishes the separate entrances were in use, the way they glare at students who get too close to one another in the halls.
Adjusting to the sudden religious overtones at St Hilda’s was way more jarring than the building itself though. Market Stepton Academy was resolutely non-denominational, so having to recite a prayer every morning in assembly took a while to get used to. Especially as all the other kids in my year knew them off by heart, having been trotting them out every day since they were six.
I was raised without religion. I know just enough to mumble ‘amen’ at the end of whatever the teacher or visiting Reverend had reeled off, always a second or two behind everyone else. Every time I feel like someone is going to turn and call me out for it, but as with everything I do, no one notices or cares. Even so, it’s hard to not feel scrutinised within such a tiny school population. At my old school, I could be surrounded by a sea of other students and still feel less claustrophobic than I do in a classroom of only fifteen others here.
I make it to the assembly hall, shuffling along the bench of already seated students until I reach a gap. I sit down, the wood creaking and reminding me of just how bloody old everything in this school is. I glance at the person next to me, someone I recognise from Biology. I hitch a cheery smile onto my face.
‘Morning, Kayleigh!’
Kayleigh takes a second to respond as she clearly grasps to remember my name. ‘Umm. Morning, Neha.’ She turns back to her conversation with whoever is sitting on her other side. I hear her ask her friend: ‘Where’s she from again?’
My smile fades, and I try to convince myself she’s asking what school I used to go to. I wonder why I’m bothering. I’m an alien to these people, they’ve known each other all their lives. I sometimes wonder if it would hurt less if they hadn’t really learned who I was yet, but the sad fact is they do know – they just don’t care.
Reverend Wallace is back again today. He used to run assembly about once a week, but since Dan King had his accident he’s been coming in more frequently to lead us in a prayer for the sick.
The day the school got the news was horrible. By Chipping Hollow standards Dan is like a minor celebrity, but when I heard he’d been hurt I wasn’t thinking of him as the popular boy. I was thinking of the boy who sat next to me in assembly on my very first day at St Hilda’s. He welcomed me to the school with such warmth, I couldn’t for a second think it was anything other than genuine. He asked me questions about myself, and actually listened when I answered.
I wish we’d had the chance to become better friends, but he was the type that’s always in demand – by teachers and students alike. Not to mention his friend Katie seemed to guard him like a pit bull, something I’m not even sure he noticed himself. He did always make an effort to smile at me when we passed in the corridors though. It went a small way to making me feel a little bit less invisible.
My mind is still wandering as the Reverend finishes his prayer and our Head of Year starts delivering announcements. I tune it all out, rousing only when everyone is standing up and moving for the door. I shoulder my bag and join the throngs of students, jostling around as everyone tries to escape the stuffiness of the hall.
‘Slut!’
The shout makes me jump, and I immediately start looking around to see where it came from. I know it wasn’t directed at me – there’s only one person it could have been directed at – but I’ve been making a mental list of the people so quick to use that word and others like it.
Right now though, there’s too many people and the shout could have come from anywhere. I do however spot a flash of red hair as the recipient of the abuse pushes faster through the crowd. Not for the first time I feel the urge to go after her, but we’ve never spoken two words to each other before. It feels too weird to do it now.
The crowd thins as everyone peels off to head to their first les-sons, and before long I’m perched on an uncomfortable lab stool pulling out my Biology books. Kayleigh is at the workbench in front of me, and my heart does a sad little flop as I think about how she struggled to remember my name.
I switch my attention to the front of the classroom where the Biology teacher, Mrs Rawlinson, is starting the lesson, and try to put everything but cell structure out of my mind. At least for the next hour.
I’ve found that the issue with being invisible means you end up with a lot of time alone with your own thoughts, whether you like it or not.
During lessons it’s not too bad. I’m pretty good at focusing on the subject in front of me, with no pesky friends to distract me from whatever the teacher is saying. I scribble down notes, answer the occasional question put to the class, and generally fulfil the role of Model Student. I’m sure I’ll be grateful for my loneliness when it comes time to take our exams, which I need to smash if I’m going to get in for medicine at university.
By lunchtime though, I’ve reached the point where I’d swap a glittering future career for just a scrap of friendly conversation.
I step into the canteen, scanning the tables for a group that might offer me a seat. Occasionally I’ll find someone who’ll give me a nod of approval to join their table, but once I’m there the chat washes over me, going too fast for me to attempt to chip in. And by the next lunchtime, it’s like I was never there. I’m cautiously hopeful that one day I might find a group that wants to keep me.
Today though, I find myself sat at the edge of the room by myself, and have only my sandwiches and cluttered thoughts for company.
I pull out my phone and jam my headphones in, choosing to soundtrack my lunch with Everybody’s Talking About Jamie, and imagine I’m the main character on the cusp of a social break-through. I start scrolling through group chat messages from my friends in Market Stepton.
ZOE
Beanz after college?
SAM
What so you can torment me at my place of work?
ROBYN
Why else would we go there?
SAM
Vibes
ZOE
Bold of you to assert that a coffee shop called ‘Beanz’ with a z has ‘vibes’
SAM
Sorry. ‘Vibez’
ZOE
I can drive us after last lesson
ZOE
Sorry Neha should have used the other chat!! Love you
I feel a pang that that they now have a separate group chat to make these kinds of last-minute plans. I can’t even drive to see them myself – I passed my test months ago, but don’t have the money for my own car. I see them as much as I can, but in between times I don’t half miss them.
I think about how easy it was to come out to them a couple of years ago – easier still because my best friend, Sam, has been out since we were twelve, and Robyn has always been so open about their relationship with gender. That kind of stuff just wasn’t a big deal in my old life.
It’s different here. I don’t know of a single kid at St Hilda’s that’s out, although sometimes I wonder if that’s because nobody really talks to me.
Almost as if on cue, from the table next to me I hear Grace Chapman ask her friends, ‘Does this haircut make me look like a lesbian?’
Her words are loud enough to cut through the music from my headphones, and as casually as I can, I slip one out so I can hear the rest of the conversation, a mix of hope and fear curdling in my stomach.
‘No babe!’ squeaks one of the other girls, my misguided hope fizzling away as disappointment settles in. ‘Of course you don’t!’
There’s a cacophony of shushing and reassuring that no, of course Grace’s new short haircut is not homosexual, don’t worry. I stuff the headphone back in. It’s not the first time I’ve overheard such effortlessly casual homophobia, and I conclude that it probably isn’t just that nobody talks to me – it’s that this doesn’t feel like a particularly safe space to come out.
Still, I often feel that the half-secret of my sexuality is like an unplayed poker chip – it could make me even more of an outcast, or it could make people finally pay a bit of attention to me. I’ve kept it so close to my chest over the past year not only out of fear of the former, but the uncomfortable tackiness of the latter.
Remembering the pin on my rucksack, I self-consciously nudge my bag further under the table with my foot, suddenly feeling exposed.
I give myself a mental shake and try to remember how lucky I am to have the friends I do have, even if they’re further away than I’d like. It seems impossible that there are no queer kids in this village, small as it is, and I can’t imagine what it would be like to need to keep something like that a total secret from everyone.
As if the universe wants to remind me that blending into the background isn’t the worst place to be, the first thing I see when I tap into Instagram is another post of that damn video.
The first time I saw it I didn’t even realise it was footage of someone I knew, or at least knew of. By the time I did understand what I was watching, it was already too late, and the image of Libby Dixon cheating on Dan King was burned into my brain. I haven’t been able to work out if he was already in a coma at that point – from what I can gather, only the people who were there that night know for sure.
I can’t pretend I’d never noticed Libby before. Even though I knew she was in a happy, very public (and very straight) relationship, something about the way she crinkled her freckled nose when she laughed, or the way the sunlight caught on her red curls, had captured my attention since I arrived in Chipping Hollow. But it was something I’d kept in a mental box labelled ‘never gonna happen’, and I tried my best to just ignore her.
I remember feeling a flare of fury when I first saw her in that video, mob mentality creeping in without permission. But then I looked closer and saw how unsteady on her feet she was, how hard this stranger seemed to be gripping her. I don’t want to presume and I don’t want to get involved, but that paired with the onslaught of slut-shaming directed at her, makes me quietly uncomfortable with the whole thing.
The bell rings signalling the end of lunch period, and I snap out of my jumbled thoughts. I look back down at my phone, Zoe’s last message still unanswered – I assume everyone has remembered I can see their plans but not join in and are feeling awkward. Desperate not to ruin the mood, I fire off a quick message.
NEHA
Don’t worry about it! Have a great time vibing/bothering Sam later:)
ZOE
We’ll bother him extra for you babe. Let’s sort something out for this weekend? I can drive us down and you can take us to that tiny cinema you were on about?
Warmth blooms in my chest. Things could certainly be a lot worse.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Becki Jayne Crossley (she/they) has had a book in her hands since before she could actually read, and since mastering the art of holding a pencil they’ve been writing down stories. As a bisexual author, Becki is passionate about queer YA stories that portray the realities of coming out and discovering your sexuality – especially considering the lack of stories they had like this while growing up. When not writing, Becki can be found reading at her favourite coffee shops around Nottingham, playing too much The Sims 4 and occasionally painting things with questionable skill.
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